How to Convince Your Boss to Switch to a CMMS

Keeping track of maintenance with spreadsheets and sticky notes worked 20 years ago, but today, it’s a recipe for chaos. Enter computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software — a solution that helps manage maintenance efficiently, reduce downtime and keep assets in top-notch condition.

A CMMS is a digital platform that centralizes maintenance data, work orders, asset histories and inventory, helping you avoid costly breakdowns. And it’s not just a trend. It’s the future. The CMMS market is expected to skyrocket to $5.3 billion by 2035, growing at 10.4 percent CAGR, as more companies ditch outdated systems and look to automate maintenance processes.

If you’re tired of lost paperwork or dealing with high downtime, now’s the time to make a case for a smarter solution. Nothing says “we need a CMMS” quite like explaining to your boss why a critical machine broke down — again — because no one realized it was overdue for service.

5 Benefits of a CMMS That Matter to Your Boss

Your boss wants to see benefits and not features. Let’s go through five key benefits that can help make your case when pitching a switch to a CMMS to your boss.

Costs

Maintenance costs eat a sizable portion of your profits. CMMS users report a 10 to 30 percent decrease in maintenance costs, which improves your company’s profitability. When pitching your boss, explain that using a CMMS can help lower these costs by:

• Enabling proactive maintenance: A proactive maintenance approach prevents costly repairs before they happen. Instead of losing production capacity to unplanned downtime, CMMS software helps minimize downtime by strategically planning maintenance tasks.
• Reducing equipment downtime: Well-maintained assets are less likely to fail. In fact, users report that a CMMS can help increase machine uptime by 31 percent on average.
• Optimizing labor efficiency: It ensures technicians spend more time fixing things and less time searching for work orders and spare parts.
• Lower spare parts cost: Maintaining unnecessary inventory ties up capital, but running out of a crucial part can halt production. A CMMS tracks parts inventory and prevents overstocking while ensuring critical components are available when needed, helping you minimize the cost of capital.

Growth

Maintenance becomes more complex as a business grows. What worked for a small team managing a few machines won’t work when new locations, more equipment and additional personnel are involved. This could be a potential concern for your boss as well. Help them understand that a CMMS supports growth by providing:

• Real-time visibility: CMMS software allows you to look at the real-time status of maintenance activities, equipment health, technician workloads and more. This helps you make data-driven decisions about workforce planning, budget allocation and prioritizing investments.
• Flexible workflows: Coast is a maintenance software that allows you to create your own workflows that make it easy to scale. By investing in a software that can adapt to your needs, you won’t have to worry about switching systems the minute you get bigger.

Information

Managing maintenance manually means dealing with disorganized paperwork, missing records and siloed information. A CMMS eliminates these problems by centralizing the information in an easily accessible, cloud-based system. Consider sharing the following examples of information you can store in your CMMS, in addition to essentials like work orders and standard operating procedures (SOPs), with your boss:

• Complete asset history: A CMMS can tell exactly when a machine was last serviced, the issues it had and which parts were replaced. It gives your teams all the asset-related information they need to make smarter decisions.
• Parts and inventory data: A CMMS tracks spare parts usage, reordering levels and supplier details. This ensures your teams never tie up too much capital overstocking inventory because of a lack of information.
• Warranty and compliance information: Never want to lose out on a warranty claim again? A CMMS stores warranty details, so you don’t have to track warranty periods manually. A CMMS also helps track compliance requirements, reducing both financial and legal risks.

Reporting

One of the biggest benefits of a CMMS is its ability to collect and analyze maintenance data. Instead of guessing how efficient your technicians are and how well your maintenance program is performing, a CMMS can offer concrete data that keeps you and your boss apprised of every maintenance-related detail. Here’s how:

• Identifies recurring equipment failures: If the same machine keeps breaking down, a CMMS can highlight patterns and help you decide whether to replace it instead of repeatedly spending on repairs.
• Measures technician efficiency: A CMMS helps track the duration of each task, identify bottlenecks and optimize workforce allocation to maximize productivity through insightful reports.
• Justifies capital expenditures: Instead of fighting for budget approvals with anecdotal evidence, your team can present data-backed reports showing how investments in new equipment or preventive maintenance programs will lead to cost savings.

Communication

Poor communication is one of the most overlooked challenges in maintenance. When information is scattered across email, handwritten notes and phone calls, tasks get delayed, errors happen and downtime increases. Top CMMS solutions streamline communication by:

• Integrating messaging directly into work orders: The best systems allow technicians to communicate within the context of specific work orders. This enables maintenance technicians and managers to ask and answer questions in real time without switching between different apps.
• Providing real-time updates: Real-time updates help prevent duplication of work and ensure that everyone knows the status of ongoing repairs.
• Allowing cross-department collaboration: Effective collaboration ensures that maintenance teams, operations staff and management are always aligned.

Important Questions You Need to Prepare to Answer

When you make your case to switch to a CMMS, your boss will likely have a few follow-up questions. Here are some questions you can expect and how to answer them as well as information you can share to earn their confidence.

1) What are our other alternatives?

Other alternatives include traditional options like paper or spreadsheet tracking. These methods are inefficient and not scalable, leaving room for errors. In the long run, traditional methods can cost the business a lot more money and, worse, reputation. CMMS software ensures our processes remain lean, automated and trackable.

2) How much will it cost?

The cost differs based on the solution you choose. However, the ROI and cost are often unrelated — an expensive solution could fail to deliver value, while a moderately priced CMMS could offer much more value. Get in touch with a sales rep from a reputable CMMS company like Coast to understand first-hand Coast’s pricing and the value it can deliver for your business.

3) What problems will it solve?

CMMS software solves some of the most pressing maintenance-related challenges, such as:

• Unplanned downtime
• High maintenance costs
• Disorganized work orders
• Lost or scattered information
• Inefficient asset inventory management
• Poor communication
• Lack of data for decision-making
• Compliance and safety risks
• Difficulty scaling
• Technician productivity issues

4) How long will it take to implement?

The CMMS implementation depends on company size, data migration complexity and user application. A basic CMMS setup for a small business could take a few days to two weeks. If you need to migrate data, customize workflows and integrate with other systems, you might need two to six weeks.

If you’re an enterprise user, you might need more time. There’s no standard timeline for every company, but here’s a general breakdown of what the process and timeline could look like:

• Planning (1 to 4 weeks): Start by defining risks, assigning project leads and choosing a CMMS.
• Data migration (2 to 8 weeks): Import asset data, work order history and inventory details.
• System configuration (2 to 6 weeks): Customize workflows, user roles and automation rules.
• Training and adoption (2 to 12 weeks): Educate staff, test the system and gather feedback.
• Full deployment (ongoing): Continuous optimization, reporting and system refinements.

5) How much support does the CMMS company provide?

This information can be easily retrieved from user reviews on the company’s website and websites like G2 and Trustpilot. Search for keywords like “customer support” to find reviews about the company’s support quality.

6) When will we start to see significant ROI?

The timeline for significant ROI depends on various factors, including the effectiveness of implementation and staff competence. Look for customer case studies or testimonials on the CMMS company’s website to get a sense of how long it might take to see significant ROI. For example, here’s a customer story about how Coast helped a Tim Hortons franchisee reduce expenses by 50 percent in just one year.

Why Choosing Coast Is a Good Option

Coast is an excellent CMMS option because it’s adaptable for businesses of all sizes. It’s a highly customizable CMMS that offers an extensive range of features, including:

• Work order management
• Asset management
• Preventive maintenance
• Parts inventory management
• Maintenance reports

Coast packs all of this into a user-friendly, mobile-first interface. It’s a cloud-based CMMS that allows users to access and update data in real time from the shop floor or during commutes.

Want to learn more? Book a demo today and try Coast for free.